John ‘Motherflipping’ Malkovich – Do Actors Belong In Games?

Since the start of film and TV, the casting of actors has been crucial. I know, as much as any consumer, that if my favorite actor is in a film then I am much more likely to see it. While there have been some pretty well known voice actors in the video game industry for a long time, it has only been a recent trend to identify a game or a character for the actors that play them.

With the industry growing bigger everyday, more and more people are becoming aware of the big names in voice acting. Talents such as Nolan North and Troy Baker have become massively recognized for their roles in games such as The Last of Us, Uncharted and Bioshock. But it is the next step that is really going to create that ‘actor connection’ witht the fans that film actors can enjoy. Motion capture not only means that you can get a big voice talent in, but you can also get a well known actor to actually act in a game. Now most gamers will know exactly what I’m talking about, and I think that the biggest example of this is Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. If you have read my recent feature on COD, then you will know that I was drawn to this game by the idea of Kevin Spacey being Kevin Spacey all over that shiz. But, the effect totally worked to draw me in, I was excited to see the story scenes more than the gameplay in many cases, and was massively disappointed every time that he was not in a scene. This has now continued to their Havoc DLC where I didn’t think “wow, new zombie mode” I was sitting there thinking “OMG I get to mow down zombies as John f**king Malkovich!” Check out the video below in case you haven’t seen it.

This move is a new and interesting one for the video game industry. For the gamers it will mean that we not only get some of the biggest names poping up in our games, but it will bring more and more attention to the industry as a whole. People may not care about COD or Beyond, but they do care about Kevin Spacey and Ellen Page.